After 3 years of worthless peaches exceedingly prone to rot, even in drought (well maybe the endless spring rain started the problem) I’m just about prepared to call Indian Blood a bust.
Its first crop was light with wonderful fruit and it’s lateness is a great thing. But I’m about done with it. Too bad, the most unusual peach in my orchard.
Does anyone have any luck growing this one in the NE. I’m in southern NYS. I’m in a hollow so even with good light the moisture lingers.
It is certainly one of the most rot-prone peaches out there. If one tree in 50 has rot in a year, it will be the one.
For me I can grow it with a heavy-duty synthetic rot spray program. I usually stop spraying for rot in June and it didn’t particularly like that approach so I am no longer growing it.
I find Sanguine Tardeva to be very similar in taste and a month earlier and much less prone to rot, I let that peach give me a “fix” of the Indian Free flavor.
I put an awful lot of fungicide on the IF, but I the last spray was in late Aug. Could I have saved it with a mid Sept spray, I wonder and maybe forsake some of the earlier ones. It seems to rot only when it begins to ripen.
Indian Free or Cling? Cling did well this year - not rot or scab and my last spray of Indar was in June.
Seems it must be free, because it is freestone.
My Indian free did great this year with just one synthetic spray in the spring. But the fruit is highly perishable. The stem always remains behind when I pull them from the tree and they go bad after just a few days.
I have no problems with it. One of my best performers actually. I do spray for rot, but the pressure here is mild. Plums don’t rot here either.
It was a peach I had looked at getting in my orchard. I had not heard a lot of feedback from those that grow them. Thanks Alan for the update as to how it did in your area. It is sort of interesting that it does well in MI but not so in NY.
My plums do not rot here either, yet the squirrels like to get the most of them before they are actually ripe. At least the like to take a few bites out of them prior to them being ripe.
One squirrel figured out my figs are great. May he RIP 
No others so far! At my cottage the birds/animals take all fruit before ripe, grapes, tart cherries, you name it.
I have Indian Free peach and it never turns red.
Mine get very red up here on the Marin County coast, nearly as red as Black Boy, but not as productive.
I was at another site where I planted another IF peach a couple years ago. It is a relatively shady site and extremely wet. A foot lower nearby it’s marsh.
There were just a few peaches left on the tree that were just slightly over ripe and somewhat damaged for wear, but I ate some of the good flesh of one of them and realize how good the peach can be for something in Oct. here.
What killed them at my site, I now realize, is the split pits created by all the spring rain. A lot of peach and plum varieties suffered from this, but IF seems more likely to rot from it than any, maybe because ALL the pits split.
At any rate, that little taste of superior peach saved mine for one more season.
Mine dropped a week ago and were all somewhat rotted inside around the pit, but I was able to eat some good parts from each one. I’m not sure if that is a common peach problem or not, I hadn’t seen it until now.
I like them, but they are probably not worth it for me long term. Our average first frost is around Oct 10 and these just ripen too late for me. I need to cut back on the number of trees I have and the marginal ones will be first to go. I’m afraid President plum might be too late as well. Mine are purple but not ripe yet.
Does your orchard get full sun?
I’d add that my Indian Free is in one of the best spots in my orchard. It’s full sun all day, all season. It’s excellent when fully ripe, but only if you like intensely sweet/tart. Its only negative is it has a thicker, fuzzier skin than other peaches. I peal mine.
That’s not your photo, is it?
That’s my photo, yes.
Beautiful photo and beautiful peach.
Thank you. That was one of the larger ones. About half seem to size up well for me, the other half stay somewhat small but still ripen nicely.
